The Children's Air Ambulance Information

The Children's Air Ambulance is an emergency transfer service for critically ill children and babies. We will fly some of the sickest children in England and Wales to specialist centres that can provide them with the treatment they urgently need in order to have the best chance of survival and recovery. Such transfers are currently done by land ambulance - our helicopter service will vastly cut the time it takes to transfer these seriously ill children meaning that they can get the specialist treatment they urgently need much quicker. When children are too ill to travel, we will fly the specialist paediatric teams to them. Children suffering from illnesses such as meningitis, those suffering respiratory and cardiac failure, children in a coma, and babies born too early are just some of the tiny patients that The Children's Air Ambulance will be helping. In October 2012 we launched our helicopter, an Agusta Grand 109 S, the fastest civilian helicopter in the UK which can reach speeds of up to 200 mph. Then in December we carried out our first emergency transfer, taking a specialist team from Leicester to Sheffield so that they could treat a critically ill baby. This was followed by the transfer of a team from Leicester to Hull - a potentially lifesaving journey that would have taken over two hours by land ambulance but which took just 35 minutes by helicopter, a vast time saving when a child is so seriously ill. In 2013, we will be launching our full emergency transfer service, taking critically ill children and babies to the hospitals that can provide them with the specialist treatment they urgently need to give them the best possible chance of survival and recovery. With approximately 5,800 children requiring inter-hospital transfers every year, it's set to be a busy 2013 for our lifesaving service.